One Last Dance Before the Long, Dark Night
by temporalwitch
Summary: During her dance with Owen after Gwen's wedding, Toshiko experiences a few revelations of her own. Features the entire team.


**One Last Dance Before the Long Dark Night**

"C'mon, Tosh, let's see that dead man dance," Owen cajoled. The thread of a dare wove through his words, and his expression held a ghost of doubt that she'd actually accept his invitation.

Toshiko slipped her fingers into his not-quite-living-or-dead hand and let him lead her onto the dance floor. She followed him hesitantly; a piece of her felt like it was waiting for him to turn and laugh cruelly and tell he was only joking. That was something Owen might have done for kicks back in the days before he died – before death awoke him and he started to realize how much living he'd really missed.

Owen smiled – a small, surprisingly timid quirk of his lips – as he drew her close to his thin body. He held her gently and relaxed into the dance, swaying them together in time to the melodic rhythm. She realized she was, at last, experiencing one of her fondest wishes – she was dancing with Owen, and at a _wedding_, no less.

The scent of his cologne teased her nose as their cheeks brushed, and she allowed herself a tiny smile. Old habits died hard, apparently…or was Owen still trying to maintain some semblance of normality in using it? It wasn't necessary, really – in his present, static state of being, he didn't particularly _need_ it, but she'd noticed that he continued holding on to those little things that kept him anchored to the life he used to live.

Toshiko inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the scent she'd identified with Owen for as long as she'd known him, and tried not to think about him wearing it when he was with Diane and Gwen and Suzie.

The song on the sound system switched to one she'd heard before and liked – a Paul Weller tune – and she huffed surprised laughter when Owen hummed and snuggled her closer.

"Whatcha think, Tosh? Two for one?" he murmured into her ear, and she nodded, pleased.

_You do something to me…something deep inside…_

Owen _did_; he always _had_, from the moment she met him. A part of her hated how viscerally she responded to him as much as it despised her helplessness at controlling that reaction.

From her periphery, movement caught her attention, and she glanced sideways. There was Jack, disrupting Gwen and Rhys' dance with one of his blinding grins. She sighed inwardly; Gwen was newly-married, and _still_ she gazed, moonstruck, at Jack – and in front of Rhys. Toshiko liked Rhys – they all did, and even Owen had grudgingly pronounced him 'a good bloke with the patience of a saint'. She wondered what he might be thinking, watching his new wife in the arms of a man he'd perceived as a rival for her affections. Did Rhys still feel threatened by Jack even now, when Gwen wore his ring? As far as Toshiko knew, Jack had neither encouraged nor discouraged her; still, surely Gwen knew Jack and Ianto were together now? If Owen, of all of them, could acknowledge it and gruffly accept it…she thought, not for the first time, that perhaps Gwen simply didn't _want_ to see what was right in front of her.

Toshiko's attention returned to Owen as he glided them through the obstacle-course of milling and dancing guests, surprisingly nimble and graceful. Toshiko allowed herself to be led, attempting to concentrate on the (_dead_) man in her arms.

After a couple of minutes she spotted Ianto, smiling tightly and striding into the midst of Jack and Gwen. With his impeccable manners, Ianto ever-so-politely interrupted their dance. She wondered if Jack understood the significance – the _weight_ of the act – of the quiet, reserved Ianto stepping into his arms, publically acknowledging their relationship. She thought Ianto's courage in this gesture was one of the most breathtaking things she had ever seen. Her heart swelled, watching them pressed together. When a few moments passed and he realized fully where he was, Jack nudged his nose under Ianto's very pink ear. Jack's lips moved slightly as they passed across it; she vaguely wondered what he was whispering as she observed his fingers clasping Ianto's more firmly over his collarbone. The deepening blush that crept up Ianto's neck and stained his pale cheeks told her it was something intensely private and (knowing Jack) probably utterly filthy. Ianto's hand tightened against the small of Jack's back, but otherwise he didn't respond.

Toshiko hoped fervently that Jack wouldn't decide to do something that would leave Ianto mortified and get them all ejected from the reception hall before they had to go into Torchwood clean-up mode. There were guests to Retcon and evidence to erase. This was going to take all night, she was sure, but there was no other option. Who wanted to remember a Nostrovite-flavoured wedding?

Toshiko felt herself pulled back into her own present when she noticed Owen staring at her. His fine brown eyes, crinkling at the corners when he smiled, as he was doing now, shone with warmth and affection. He was _seeing_ her.

It was happening. The dream she'd been holding tightly in her heart for the past few years was beginning to bloom! Owen was finally seeing her, and something inside her swelled, warm and bright. She hadn't felt anything like this since Tommy Brockless…

…and a sharp pang sliced through her. Tommy was gone now…she'd never see him again, and he'd loved her. She'd loved him just as deeply. She thought they might have been happy together, had they met under other circumstances and Torchwood hadn't been a factor in either of their lives…but it was Torchwood that brought them together in the first place. Their lives never would have intersected otherwise – they couldn't have possibly known each other, but for the Rift's mischief and the foresight of Torchwood operatives of ninety years ago.

She thought fleetingly about Mary, who'd paid attention to her and awakened a part of her she hadn't even known existed. Mary was dead too…dead with the fire of the sun and Jack's decision to send her there. She wondered if there could have been anything more for them if Mary hadn't been a murderous alien and killed by Torchwood.

Owen's cool lips, brushing across her temple, wrenched her sharply back into the reality of their lives. Owen was _dead_. There would be no grand romance for them; no heart-stopping proposal by a moonlit lake; no honeymoon; no wedding dance of their own. There would _be_ no happily-ever-after. There would be…nothing.

She glanced surreptitiously at Ianto, whose chin rested on Jack's shoulder while he swayed to the music, encircled in Jack's strong arms. He wore his carefully-schooled, impassive expression that he showed to the world and which protected the essence of himself, but underlying it she thought she discerned a degree of peace softening his boyish features. This was something new – she hadn't seen this side of him but rarely, and it was so, so lovely to behold. However fleeting it would be, she knew Ianto would take this one bright, shining moment in time with him to his grave. There hadn't been many of them gracing his short life. She wondered if Jack knew what a few minutes of his undivided attention meant to Ianto, who always seemed to be waiting patiently in the background – in the shadows, behind and beneath and beyond Jack's force-of-nature presence.

There would be no happily-ever-after for _them_, either. Compared to Jack, Ianto's life was a proverbial flash in the pan. He would die sooner rather than later, because he had no choice as long as he was Torchwood. Jack would survive, because he was immortal and had no choice either. Jack would live on without Ianto as his shadow and conscience and confidante, and he would grieve him terribly, and eventually he would move on. Toshiko wondered how long Ianto – any of them, for that matter – could live in the memory of a man who had forever to mourn and forget the specters of the countless people he'd loved and lost.

But they had _here-and-now_, and it occurred to her that they were, for once, fully living in it. Ianto was whispering something into the shell of Jack's ear; she saw Jack's shoulders shake with barely-suppressed mirth as he clasped Ianto more tightly and pressed a quick, firm kiss to his neck. Toshiko caught the expression on his face in profile, and it told her that Jack was now cupping this moment in the palm of his hand and would later tuck it safely away in the deepest, most protected niche of his heart where he kept the most precious of his memories. To her eyes, Jack appeared to be savoring the moment like he would relish a mug of Ianto's finest coffee. He inhaled deeply, his eyes closed and fingers trailing over the rough texture of Ianto's suit jacket. Jack seemed to be focusing the power of all his senses to commit every minute detail of this dance to memory; she thought he might be trying to imprint it on his soul to relive a thousand years from now.

Toshiko felt immediately and tremendously grateful for having been granted the opportunity, by whatever powers that be, to witness Jack's tiny-yet-immense epiphany.

And as quickly as the affection she felt for Jack and Ianto surged through her at the picture they made together, Toshiko all at once felt sick. She couldn't drag enough oxygen into her lungs to breathe properly. She disentangled herself from Owen carefully – she didn't want to hurt his feelings more than she had to, after all. She suddenly needed to put as much space between herself and this man she'd loved for so long without condition and without asking anything for herself – not even the simple dignity of his acknowledgement.

But Owen didn't let her go. Instead, he pulled her close to his wiry frame again and kissed her cheek softly, murmuring, "You look gorgeous, Tosh…I ever tell you that?"

She shook her head numbly.

Owen was trying, she realized. He was really trying. He was being kind and solicitous. And yet, he'd accused her, not so long ago, of confessing what he insisted was a nonexistent love for him because she feared she was going to lose him. _Had_ she been trying to hold on to him even then? Had she been grasping desperately at the illusion of a future _them_, even after it became apparent he would never regain a normal life?

An unexpected wave of dizziness caused her to lean into him, which she thought he might have mistaken for affection in return. Owen tightened his arms around her and rested his cheek against hers.

It seemed he was now doing the same of which he'd once indicted her – he was grasping onto her like she was the only thing that stood between him and having to face the prospect of years of a lonely, bereft living death.

_Is that all I am? A place-holder?_

The musical titter of laughter reached her ears, and she glanced across the room. Gwen and Rhys stood among friends, relatives, and well-wishers, laughing and toasting their future together. Even in her gown splattered with alien-guts-and-bits, Toshiko thought Gwen looked radiant. Rhys was handsome and glowed with happiness, his face and tuxedo smeared with bits of Nostrovite leftovers. They described the very picture of wedded bliss.

In her current frame of mind, Toshiko wondered what kind of future they could have when Gwen faced death daily as part of her job. Would Rhys be a tragic young widower, perhaps left to raise the child they hadn't yet conceived alone?

Owen kissed her cheek again, and she shuddered at the cool touch of his lips.

Toshiko loved Owen. She always had, from the moment she laid eyes on him. That hadn't changed, and she knew it never would. But she thought, with bitter irony, that it took him _dying_ to realize she was even alive.


End file.
